


Playdate

by orphan_account



Series: Enchanted Worlds [11]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Enchanted Worlds prequel short story that tells the tale of a long-forgotten chance encounter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playdate

He wasn’t supposed to be there. And he wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten there to begin with. Later, he would believe that it was all a dream and push it from his mind, particularly in light of what happened mere months afterward.

He would be wrong to shrug it off as a dream, but it made sense that he would do so. Because his arrival in the walled garden had occurred as things tend to do in dreams: he had been in one place, and then suddenly stepped through to another, without meaning to, without knowing what had just happened. One moment he’d been wandering away from his parents while they browsed a shop, bored out of his mind, and the next there had been an immense brick wall behind him, and a labyrinth of flowers before him. Just outside the thick wall he could still hear the hustle and bustle of the city going on, so he knew he hadn’t wandered that far, but the noise was overlaid by the chirping of birds and the flow of water and the rustling of leaves. The sounds of nature drowned out the din of the city somehow, muting it slightly, even though the opposite should have been true. That too had been very dreamlike.

It should have struck him as deeply wrong, and he should have been more afraid, but he was young enough yet that it struck him only as something deeply curious, a puzzle to be solved, a mystery to be unraveled. His senses overwhelmed by the wonders around him, he drifted forward through the paths carved among the plants, past rosebush and weeping willow tree, around stream and birdbath, through a cloud of butterflies and beyond a statue of some looming, enormous bird with cruel eyes carved into the stone.

His exploration stopped short, however, when he saw her. She was sitting with her back to a large fountain where a huge swan spouted water into a glimmering pool, etching shapes into the dirt with a stick while countless colorful birds of all sizes gathered around her, sitting on the ground and the fountain or perched on her shoulders and even her head. They all took off when he emerged, in a great fluttering of wings that was so loud he cringed. The little girl with the bright hair looked up at him as she heard them leave, and her big blue eyes got even larger as she saw him. “What… what are you… what are you doing here?”

“Um… I… um…” Asked to explain to her what he couldn’t even explain to himself, he found himself at a loss for words. “I don’t know… I mean… I kinda just… I don’t know how I got here. Where is this place?”

“It’s my uncle’s garden.” She stood up and walked over to him. She could see he was a bit older than she was, and taller, with skin that was a light tan color and thick black hair, and the eyes that stared nervously back at her were a deep shade of green. “How’d you get in? You’re not supposed to be in here, he’ll… he’ll… he’ll put you… you’ll be in big trouble.”

“I – I really don’t know. Honest!” He shook his head as she peered at him. This close, he could see how long her eyelashes were, and that she had a small sprinkling of freckles on her nose. “I was outside in the city and then suddenly I was here and I don’t know what happened. I just suddenly got here. I didn’t break in or anything!”

“Did you hop over the wall?” She hadn’t heard the wall breaking, so she believed him, but it still confused her how he could’ve gotten in when there weren’t any doors to the outside from the garden. Jumping or flying over the wall seemed like the most reasonable explanation. That it looked as far away as the sky from her vantage point wasn’t relevant.

“What? No.” He frowned. “I – I told you, I really don’t know how I got here. I was just suddenly here.”

“Oh. Maybe… maybe you… did you, did you use, did you use magic?” That was something she knew a little bit about, thanks to her uncle.

“I, um… sorta? I mean, I know a little,” he added. “But – but I wasn’t trying to use it or anything, I swear.”

“Then it must’ve been… it must’ve been… it must’ve been a, an accident.” She nodded. “You gotta be careful with magic.”

He bristled a little bit at that. “I – I know that! Everybody always tells me that, but I’m not stupid, I know, and I _am_ careful.”

“Oh. That’s good.” She considered him a bit, not sure what to ask next. “So, um, what’s your name?”

“… Fakir,” he said hesitantly. Some of the other kids back home had made fun of his name before, and he was afraid she would laugh too. It was a word from the faraway land his mother’s family had come from, and some of the other village children thought it was weird. It was one more reason he didn’t have many friends, beyond just a general disinterest in playing outside. “Wh-what about you? What’s your name?”

“I’m Ahiru.” She smiled brightly and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you!”

Fakir hesitated for a moment out of shyness, but then took her small hand in his and shook it, the way his parents had taught him to do with adults they had over to the house. “N-nice to meet you too.” He could feel his cheeks growing a little warm.

He started to let go of her hand, but Ahiru had his in a firm grasp, and she tugged on it a little. “Come on over here! I’ll show my favorite… my favorite place!”

He let her lead him along, and only stumbled a couple times as her path wound wild zigzags through the garden. He found himself staring at the top of her head as they walked along, at the little lock of hair that stuck up from it. It resembled a feather, reminding him of the ducks he’d seen at the lake earlier. “So are you visiting your uncle for the day or something?”

“No, I live here with him.” Ahiru stopped, her eyes darting around the different options she had open to her, trying to recall which one she needed to take next to get to where she was going. “My parents are… they’re… my uncle says they’re… he says they’re… he says they’re far away in heaven. I dunno where that is. Do you? He always laughs when I ask if I can visit them.”

“I…” Fakir swallowed. “Heaven” was the word adults used to talk about where people like his grandmother went after they died; it didn’t really sound like a real place to him. He wasn’t sure how to explain that to her, though. “Um… I don’t either, but I don’t think it’s someplace you can visit. My grandma’s supposed to be there but I can’t see her anymore either, except for this one place they take me where it says her name on a rock, but I don’t think it’s really her. It’s weird. I don’t get it either.” He’d asked once too, if he could go to heaven and visit her, but nobody had laughed at him. It seemed kinda mean to laugh, in his opinion.

“You met your grandma before she went there?” Ahiru turned curious eyes on him. He nodded. “I never met my mama or my father before they went away there. My uncle said… my uncle said… he said… my daddy went away before I was born and my mama… she went away right after I was born. Why do you think they did that?”

“I don’t know.” Fakir shook his head. “But I don’t think people have a choice about going there, so it’s not like they wanted to leave you.”

“Really?” Ahiru brightened a little at that. “That… that… that’s a little better. I think…”

Fakir didn’t know what to say to that, but he didn’t have to, as she turned back to studying the garden and then took off into another path like a shot, making him almost fall onto his face as he struggled to keep up with her. He managed to keep himself upright, though, and easily kept pace with her thanks to his longer legs.

After a few minutes, Ahiru spoke up again. “My uncle says… my uncle says… he says… he says…” She seemed to be having trouble getting her thoughts out, so Fakir waited for her to finish her sentence without interrupting. “He says I look like my mama. Who do you look like?”

“I look like my mother too.” They stopped again, and Ahiru turned around so she could look at him. “All the adults say the only thing my father gave me was the color of my eyes, and then they laugh. I don’t really get it, but they say I will when I get older.”

“Your mama must be pretty, then,” Ahiru said, in a very matter-of-fact sort of tone, and Fakir blushed furiously even as she turned her back once more and led him a short ways over, past a trellis that was very nearly overrun with out of control honeysuckle. “Over here! This is… this is it!” She beamed at him and pointed at a little pool behind a fence that reached to above her head, but was just a little bit shorter than Fakir. “See? The fishies, the fishies are all swimming in there.” She let go of his hand and hurried ahead of him.

Fakir followed her and leaned against the fence. Sure enough, there were some brightly colored fish swimming around in the water. Sunlight sparkled on the surface of the pool, and he averted his eyes so he wouldn’t end up seeing spots. Beside him, Ahiru clung to the bars as she peeked through at them. “This is your favorite spot?”

“Yeah.” Ahiru nodded. “I wanna… I wanna go swimming in there with them, but my uncle, my uncle says… my uncle says I can’t.” She made a little pouty face. “It’s not fair.”

“Adults always have stupid reasons for saying you can’t do stuff.” Fakir made a face. “Or they don’t even give you a reason, they just say it’s cause they say so. That’s even stupider!” He turned and looked at her. “What about your aunt? Does she let you do stuff?”

“I don’t have an aunt.” She shook her head. “Just my uncle. We live… we live here by ourselves. Sometimes people come to visit but… but usually it’s just him and me.” She swayed back and forth a little. “My mama died after I was born and nobody… nobody knows who my daddy was, and… and… and there’s just my uncle and me.”

Fakir frowned. “I thought you said your father was in heaven?”

“That’s what my uncle said.” Ahiru knelt down and stretched her hand through a gap in the fence, trying to touch the water. Her little arms were still too short, though. “But he also said… he said… he said… he said nobody knew who he was.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, that’s stupid.” He scowled. “If he doesn’t know who he was, how’s he know he’s in heaven?”

“Cause… cause… um… um…” Ahiru turned and looked up at him with wide eyes. “I… I dunno…”

“Yeah, see?” Fakir kicked at the fence. “Maybe your uncle’s wrong and your father’s still alive somewhere and he’ll come see you someday and take you out of here.”

“And do what?” She kept staring up at him with wide eyes. She couldn’t quite imagine what would happen if her father did show up here someday.

“Take you away! Take you to live somewhere else!” He gave her a confused look. “Doesn’t that sound good? I mean, for all you know, you could be a princess, and he’ll take you away to live in a castle with lotsa servants or something.”

Ahiru giggled. “That’s silly! Castles are for princesses! I’m not a princess!”

“You don’t know that. Maybe your real father has one.” Fakir shrugged. “If you don’t know him, he could be anybody. Don’t you ever do make-believe?”

“Kinda. But there’s nobody to play with.” Ahiru’s shoulders slumped and her gaze fell to Fakir’s feet, to the slightly scuffed and dirty shoes he was wearing. One of his socks had fallen lower than the other one, and had a green smudge on it. “Nobody ever comes over and… and I don’t get… I don’t get to go out, so… so… so I’m always by myself.”

Fakir was quiet for a moment, watching her fidget with her skirt. After a minute or so, he turned back to the pond, and concentrated. He wasn’t all that good yet, but he could do some things if he really tried, and – “Hey. Look at that.”

Ahiru lifted her head. “Look at wh – oh!” She clapped her hands together excitedly as she saw it: the little waterspout Fakir had created in the pond. She jumped up and pressed herself to the fence, watching it until it unspun itself and collapsed into the water with a splash. “Did – did you – did you do that?”

“Yeah.” Fakir tried to sound casual. “Just a little thing I can do. No big deal.”

“Wooooow…” Her eyes shone as she stared at him. “You’re – you’re – you’re really – really good at it!”

“Thanks.” She could see him blushing a little again – was it warm out here? It didn’t feel that warm to her. “So, um… I don’t know how long I can stay, my parents might be looking for me, but… do you… do you want me to play with you for a little while?”

“You – you – you’d play with me?” Ahiru could hardly believe it. “Really? Really?”

“Yeah.” He smiled shyly at her. “I know some stuff. I could show you. If you want.”

“Please! Please please please!” Ahiru was practically bouncing up and down, her cowlick fluttering every which way. “I wanna play, I wanna play!”

“Okay.” He couldn’t help but laugh, and she let out her little giggle again. She wasn’t old enough to know a word like “infectious”, but if she had been, she would’ve described his laugh like that. “We’d need more people for some things, so we can’t do those, but we can do make-believe stuff.” He liked that better anyway; it was something you could do by yourself, and imagining things came naturally to him besides.

“Yay! Yay! Thank you!”

How long they played together they didn’t know, but all the same it seemed to come to an end much too soon. Fakir had just pretended to fall over as Ahiru, taking on the role of a knight, “slew” him, as he was playacting the role of a dragon, when a loud male voice called out her name. Ahiru froze in place, her eyes going wide with fear. “Oh no… it’s my uncle… I gotta, I gotta, I gotta go back inside! And you, you, you gotta go home, or, or he’ll get you!”

Fakir got up from the ground. How he was going to get back through the wall to his parents didn’t matter as much as the terror in her eyes. “Why – why don’t you come with me?”

“Wh-what?” Ahiru stared at him.

“Come with me!” Fakir repeated. “You – you wanna find your real father and have people to play with, right? So – so you should come with me, and you can stay at my house until you find your father and go away and live with him, and – and my parents are really nice, and…”

“I can’t do that!” She shook her head. “He – he’d find me! He can do – he can – he can do – he can do magic, and – and – and he’s good at it, and he’d be so mad and…” She shook her head again. “I wanna go but I can’t.”

“I know magic too! I showed you, remember?” Fakir dusted off his clothes. “I could get him for you!”

“No!” Ahiru shook her head a third time. “You – you can’t, he’s too – he’s too – he’s really good at it, he’d – he’d get you and… I don’t want him to get you.” Her lower lip trembled, and she started to say something else, but her uncle called her name again. “I – I gotta go! Bye, Fakir! Thank you for playing with me!” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and then dashed off in the direction of the house.

Fakir watched her go, heard her little footsteps disappear into the distance. He could still feel where she’d kissed him on the cheek, and something about it made his heart ache as he turned and walked away. He somehow found his way back to where he’d entered the strange garden, and pushed at the wall fruitlessly for a while before giving up and moving on to a different spot.

Eventually, he found his way back out to the city street, and remembered the method no better than he recalled how he’d gotten into the garden in the first place. He didn’t have to go far before his frantic parents – who by now had consulted the local police for help – found him wandering around. They didn’t want to hear where he’d been and what he’d been doing, not really, and were more interested in telling him in loud voices accompanied by some tears about why he shouldn’t do that again and how scared they’d been. He nodded and gave them all the answers they wanted to hear, his mind still on the girl in the garden.

Once his parents were pacified by his lack of defiance in the face of their scolding, they took him back to the train station. They passed by an ice cream vendor on the way, and exchanged nervous glances – they’d promised Fakir one before he’d gotten himself lost, and expected him to remember and try to get one out of them despite his transgression. By now, however, he’d forgotten all about that and didn’t even seem to notice the ice cream stand. They breathed identical sighs of relief.

Fakir fell asleep on the train home, which helped in cementing his later perception that his encounter in the garden had been merely a dream. But dream or not, he couldn’t stop dwelling on the feelings that had arisen in his heart from his meeting with the lonely little girl in the walled garden. Whatever she said to the contrary, she was like a princess from a fairy tale, locked up in a tower by a wicked uncle, and the urge to save her surged up inside him despite his uncertainty about whether he had met her or dreamed her. He took up playing with a toy sword in addition to busily practicing magic, and entertained little fantasies in his head of charging to her rescue. It would be all he thought about for a few months, until a fire consumed his house and his parents, and drove all else from his young mind, causing him to eventually forget about what he already considered nothing more than a dream.

As for Ahiru, she looked at first for the mysterious, magic-using boy, hoping he would come back and play with her again. But he never did. And so in time she forgot about him, and her subconscious mind pushed their time together away to a dark and disused corner, so that the memory of companionship wouldn’t haunt her loneliness and make it ache all the more.


End file.
